Trooper Wins Reverse Discrimination Verdict
Editor’s Note: The court entered a judgment of $1.1 million and the case was settled for an undisclosed amount after appeal.
HOWELL – A state trooper who said he was a victim of reverse discrimination has been awarded $850,000 by a jury that found in his favor in a lawsuit against the State Police.
It was overwhelming. From years of frustration, it's been building and building, and finally culminated into this.
Brighton Post Trooper Thomas Cremonte said after the verdict.
Cremonte, in addition to saying he was discriminated against for promotion, said the State Police illegally retaliated against him because he complained about the department’s affirmative action policy.
Cremonte, who is white, said he is just one of many troopers – including some blacks and women- who believe they have not received deserved promotions.
“We just keep getting passed over,” Cremonte said. “We score well on the tests; we do everything we’re supposed to do. They make up lame excuses why they can’t promote us.”
Inspector Al Slaughter of the Equal Employment Opportunity Office at State Police headquarters in East Lansing said the department’s hiring and promotions practices were based on federal guidelines.
Witnesses who testified for Cremonte during the two-week trial in Livingston County Circuit Court that ended Thursday included county Prosecutor David Morse, three Livingston County police chiefs and several troopers.
The case said the state police “augmentation” allows minority troopers in a lower band of candidates – those who score between 83 and 91 on promotional exams – to compete with those in the highest band, 92 or above.
Cremonte said he scored in the second band before 1993 but was never allowed to compete with the first band, then scored between 97 and 99 from 1993 to 1995 but was not promoted.
Cremonte wrote a memo criticizing promotion procedures in April 1990.
The department was hiring troopers “too short to see over the wheel, …to weak to pull the trigger of a gun,…to ignorant to complete even the most basic reports,” he wrote. “We hire minorities we find on the welfare rosters and in the unemployment lines.”
Cremonte said he was told later at a party by Col. Michael Robinson: “If you ever get rid of your poison pen, I might promote you.”
The State Police argued that Cremonte was not the most qualified employee for the promotions he was seeking, and that the promotions policy is needed to keep the force diverse.
The agency said it was considering an appeal.
Cremonte’s lawyer, James Fett, said a disproportionate number of younger troopers were getting the best jobs.
Howell’s, population 8,184, is 34 miles east of Lansing.
As originally published in the Lansing State Journal, February 24, 1996.